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Hackers Hit Amazon’s Third-party Sellers

Hackers are targeting third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace, using stolen logins to scam thousands of dollars from shoppers.

The bad guys have escalated their attacks in recent weeks by taking over dormant accounts, changing the banking information, and advertising nonexistent merchandise at bargain prices, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal.

While buyers can get a refund, the scam hits sellers hard as they must reimburse customers for merchandise they’ve paid for but never received.

Margina Dennis, a makeup artist in New York City, told NBC News she still had more than one hundred emails to answer from angry customers wondering why they never received a Nintendo Switch hackers posted on her account. Dennis added that she is tens of thousands of dollars in debt due to her account being compromised.

“This has been mentally, emotionally, so trying and the level of frustration trying to deal with them,” Dennis said. “Basically their response is, ‘We received a notice and we’ll get back to you when we get back to you. We can’t tell you when or if.’”

The issue came to Dennis’ attention when she said she received hundreds of emails from buyers complaining they never received the Nintendo Switches they ordered.

Amazon sent Dennis a note on March 29th saying she may have been hacked, however she said she had to wait days for her account to be taken down since the hacker changed the password and she was unable to log in.

She added, she would never shop or sell on Amazon again.

The WSJ noted that the fraud stems largely from email and password credentials stolen from previously hacked accounts and then sold on what’s dubbed the “Dark Web,” a network of anonymous internet servers where hackers communicate and trade illicit information.

While the precise scope and financial impact of the Amazon attacks is unclear, some sellers say the hacks have shaken their confidence in Amazon’s security measures. Such third-party merchants are critical for Amazon’s retail business, with more than two million sellers on the site accounting for more than half of its sales, including more than 100,000 sellers who each now sell in excess of $100,000 annually.

Amazon spokesman Erik Fairleigh told NBC News in a statement that the company, “is constantly innovating on behalf of customers and sellers to ensure their information is secure and that they can buy and sell with confidence onamazon.com. There have always been bad actors in the world; however, as fraudsters get smarter so do we.”

Amazon’s statement recommended that people monitor their accounts on a regular basis and turn on two-factor authentication.